What’s on Friday

9 P.M. (13) PARSIFAL Jonas Kaufmann sings the title role in this new production of Wagner’s opera about the knights of the grail, staged in a postapocalyptic setting of sun-baked earth and swirling mists by the French Canadian director François Girard, in his Metropolitan Opera debut. René Pape plays the wise knight Gurnemanz; Katarina Dalayman (on the ground above, next to Mr. Kaufmann and in front of Mr. Pape) is the wayward temptress Kundry; Peter Mattei is the wounded king Amfortas; and Evgeny Nikitin is the evil wizard Klingsor. Daniele Gatti conducts this coproduction with Opéra National de Lyon and the Canadian Opera Company, presented in two parts by “Great Performances at the Met.” “The gloominess of this production can become oppressive,” Anthony Tommasini wrote in a New York Times review in February. Still, “there is much to admire in Mr. Girard’s thoughtful and intrepid staging, full of striking imagery.” The Met, he added, “has assembled about the best ‘Parsifal’ cast available today,” while Mr. Gatti “draws diaphanous playing from the great Met orchestra and captures the shifting currents of this richly chromatic and complex score.” Part 2 will be broadcast next Friday at 9.

11:30 A.M. (Sundance) I’M NOT THERE (2007) Cate Blanchett (in an Oscar-nominated performance), Heath Ledger (below), Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Ben Whishaw and Marcus Carl Franklin portray aspects of Bob Dylan’s persona in this musical biopic directed by Todd Haynes. “ ‘I’m Not There,’ ” A. O. Scott wrote in The Times, “respects the essential question Mr. Dylan’s passionate followers have always found themselves asking — What does it mean? — without forgetting that the counter-question Mr. Dylan has posed is more challenging and, for a movie, more important: How does it feel?”

5 P.M. (Showtime 2) PEOPLE LIKE US (2012) Sam (Chris Pine), a motormouthed New York salesman under scrutiny by the Federal Trade Commission, discovers that his dead father, a Los Angeles record producer, has left him a collection of vinyl records and a shaving kit — with $150,000 in it and a note to deliver it to an address. That’s when Sam finds that Dad had a second family, including a daughter, Frankie (Elizabeth Banks), a single mother understandably confused by Sam’s motives when he befriends her at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. “There would be no movie if Sam didn’t withhold the truth about their shared parentage, especially after he becomes a surrogate father” to Frankie’s 11-year-old son, Stephen Holden wrote in The Times of this feature debut directed by Alex Kurtzman. “But ‘People Like Us’ delays the big reveal for so long that when it finally arrives with the requisite emotional explosion, it feels too little too late.”

8 P.M. (TNT) THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE (2009) A Chicago librarian (Eric Bana) and unwilling time traveler flits — naked — in and out of the life of his true love (Rachel McAdams), only to return each time with increasingly disconcerting information about her future in Robert Schwentke’s adaptation of the Audrey Niffenegger best seller.

9 P.M. (CW) AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL Tyra Banks and Rob Evans give the men and women a lesson in chemistry before having them pose for a risqué photo shoot. Later, a few of the guys have post-makeover meltdowns.

9 P.M. (TLC) SAY YES TO THE DRESS In this Season 10 opener Kristin Chenoweth helps her assistant search for the perfect gown for her second wedding — and even models it herself. In “What Not to Wear,” at 10, Stacy London and Clinton Kelly persuade Lizz, a stage mother, to keep her tendency toward inappropriately provocative skirts and boots in check for the sake of her nine children.

9 P.M. (Travel) GHOST ADVENTURES Season 8 begins as the team searches for paranormal activity in a century-old saloon in Nevada not far from where the actress Carole Lombard was killed in a plane crash in 1942.

11 P.M. (TV5Monde) LE VENT DE LA NUIT (1999) Catherine Deneuve (below) plays Hélène, a beautiful but insecure housewife with deep pockets, and Xavier Beauvois is Paul, her much younger lover, who occasionally uses heroin to escape her possessiveness in this drama directed by Philippe Garrel. Then, at an exhibition in Naples, Paul meets a well-known artist (Daniel Duval), who regales him with tales of his troubled past as they travel back to Paris in his red Porsche. John Cale of the Velvet Underground wrote the score. KATHRYN SHATTUCK

Correction:

An entry in the What’s on Today television highlights in some editions on Friday about the film “I’m Not There,” on the Sundance Channel, misstated the director’s surname. He is Todd Haynes, not Hayes.